and the ground opens up

[thecatinahat]

WHO: Cougar Alvarez
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: Hours post-quake, September 6th (pre-aftershocks) / September 6th, evening
OPEN TO: OTA / Closed to Jake (cut content)
WARNINGS: Slight injury
STATUS: Closed

---

cougar's barbershop of necessity

Cougar's beginning to think the boxes that arrive are possibly saving their lives. He wants to pretend they're from a friendly, but he also knows plenty about being used when needed. For all he knows, the boxes are coming from someone like Max, who is keeping them alive because there are nefarious plans in place for them. Unfortunately, Cougar has learned that you use what you need to and if you have to take advantage, you have to turn the tables for yourself.

The barbed wire that he receives in a box is small, but it will do the job. He really only needs it to create a mesh on the ground to catch the eggs in the small coop he's built for the chickens. The chicks are growing by the day and he thinks with another two weeks, they might begin laying their own eggs, which will take him from a production of three a day to twelve. With a dozen eggs a day, he knows that the food situation can alleviate a little and he can hunt less, which is something he's been worried about as the population of animals is only so finite.

He's on the ground looping wire when he feels something beneath him that troubles him.

The ground had moved earlier in the month, he swears, but Cougar is currently precariously positioned under a wooden chicken coop built without much sturdiness and the quake seems to be getting worse and worse. Sharply exhaling, Cougar bolts upright without thinking, the side of his neck slicing hair and skin as it hits barbed wire and makes him roll onto his stomach, deciding to use the very wire he's been hanging for eggs to protect him from anything that might fall during the quake (which is worse than the last).

Palms flat to the ground, he prays to God that nothing too big falls on him, his quiet litany of words keep going until the ground is stable beneath him. Blood, tacky and dripping, is now pooling at his neck and he crawls his way out of the protection to glance in the first water he can find. He lifts up the other side of his uneven hair as he realizes that the wire has taken off most of his hair to the jawline. While he can patch himself up from the wound, he cannot fix the hair emergency.

Which is why, once he's stitched, he finds the kitchen shears and goes to the inn, plonking them down at a table firmly and sitting there, waiting.

Someone is going to need to help cut the rest off and while he feels like a boy in Mama's kitchen again waiting his turn, he knows he cannot keep walking around with a half shorn head. Best to cut it to the curls, again. It will be short and strange, but it will grow properly, then.

the picnic



Jake's birthday is September. Without a calendar, Cougar is left without knowing what day it is, but the weather and other things give enough indications to tell him that summer is fading into fall. The way the sun sets, the temperature of the air, and other clues tell him that either Jake's birthday is about to come or it's passed. Either way, it's a good opportunity for Cougar to try and finally mend the ground between them.

He intends to do more than just mend, of course, but he'll take the small steps if he can't take the bigger ones. He uses the eggs to make meringue cookies, makes a salad with the greens and strawberries, and cooks up a hare before stuffing it into one of the boxes that had brought his items to him. When those are ready and Baby is at his heels, Cougar slips up to collect Jake, trying to tell himself that this will not go badly if he doesn't let it.

With his hair newly shorn, he feels more like a civilian than ever. In the humidity of the wet air, it's already begun to curl the way he hates and the stitches along his neck aren't hidden the way his hair or hat would keep them. He settles, instead, for trying to hide it with the collar of his scrubs shirt, though he has no luck.

He finds Jake, eventually, and whistles for Baby to go collect him at a gallop, yipping away as Cougar closes the distance just a little slower.

Comments

[lastofthekellys]

The ground shouldn't move.

Oh, she's heard of earthquakes. Mostly from Sunday School and her mother's Californian second husband. And she'd noticed the shakes the other day, the ones everyone told her were little. Nothing even split. Well, this was bigger than that and a container went smashing to the ground and she doesn't even blame her new kitten for fleeing. She wants to flee herself.

But she doesn't.

Kate Kelly picks herself up, straightens her blouse, and is grateful she's finished her corset. The garment makes her feel better. Contained. Protected. More in control. Then walks out of the kitchen to try and find the kitten. Whom, she noticed, hops as she runs, of all the ridiculous things.

So it is a pale, trying-not-to-show-that-she's-afraid Kate who walks into the main room of the inn, calling for her kitten.

"Here, puss, puss, where are you, kitty? Here, Miss Kitty, c'mon-"

She sees Mr Cougar.

She sees the blood on the blood on his face.

And Kate visibly startles. "Jesus Mary and Joseph, what happened to you?" she yelps.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar is calm by now. There had been a litany of prayers and cursing earlier, but now he's calm and relaxed, even serene almost. He can't help his amused smirk when she starts calling for a cat, because the Losers have long called him their animal, what with his nickname and all. He coaxes the cat into his palm as he gives Kate a shrug and a gesture to his now patched neck. "Earthquake," he explains. "Was under barbed wire. I sat up."

It's his own fault, but at the same time, it's not like they spent all their time in basic telling you how to avoid chicken coop wire in the event of an earthquake. He gives her a hopeful look as he raises the shears. "Will you cut?"

[lastofthekellys]

And the dratted kitten just looks so smug, doesn't she? She's a pretty little thing, Kate thinks, a grey tabby with pale green eyes. No tail except a bob of fluff, and that strange way of hoping when she runs, but a pretty kitten. A pretty little kitten currently nestled in Mr Cougar's hand like she has no intention of leaving.

Not that Kate particularly blames her, even as she scoops the kitten up and gives Mr Cougar a smile of thanks.

"I will," she says. "Come to the kitchen, it's easier to clean up."

[thecatinahat]

He nods his head, patting the kitten behind the ears as Miss Kelly takes it away from him. It seems that there are more animals everywhere he turns, which he doesn't mind at all. It just means that they will have to ensure the smaller creatures are being fed just as much as the bigger ones.

"Thank you," he says firmly, meaning it implicitly. "It must even out. Or it will never grow right."

[lastofthekellys]

On that, Kate entirely agrees. She's too much a farmer not to see value in the dogs - and now, cat - who has appeared, and the same with the livestock found. If she worries about wintertime fodder, well...

She worries a lot, as people might have started to guess from her determined to Keep Everyone Fed.

"I understand," Kate says. "My oldest brother, he could be so particular 'bout his beard." It still hurts to mention Ned, but here... Here no one knows who he is, and maybe this will help. Talking about him normally. "And... you've seen me hair."

Long, thick, dark - and curly.

"How short do you want it?" she asks, gesturing him over to the nearest sink as she puts the kitten on her shoulder briefly and pulls over a chair for Mr Cougar.

(She understands, too, the trust of a sharp implement near someone's throat. She intends to show every possible care.)

[thecatinahat]

Cougar isn't sure that he gets a choice. After all, the uneven cut of the wire will have informed how short it's going to be without giving him much options. He thinks that he might as well go just a little shorter than that, to allow it to grow a bit more. Sitting down in the chair and leaning back to keep his posture straight, he presses his fingertips to the midpoint of the shell of his ear.

"Here," he says. "It will curl, lots. Let it be short." He could crop it even closer, but he hasn't got the product to maintain a cut that he hasn't worn since he was a teenager.

[lastofthekellys]

"Aye, now, it will," Kate agrees. She knows curls, the shift in length between straightening out a lock between fingers and releasing it. She knows, too, the difference between wet and dry, recently washed or just brushed for a week.

And so, she concentrates. She can babble well enough, sparkle even, but when she works, she prefers either silence or singing. For this, she's silent. Concentrating. Working to get his hair neat and none too short.

For a comb, she uses a fork. To wipe away the dried blood, there's a soaking teatowel and her movements are sure but gentle. The pressure one would use on a child, or an injured animal. Not rough, in case the patient lashes out.

She's cut her brothers' hair, although not for several years. She'd like to think the cut is neat enough.

[taiyny]

She's outside post-quake, assessing damage to people and buildings. It was a small one, but who knows how well this place was built, or how often these quakes happen, or even whether or not they'll experience an after shock. Maybe this was just a precursor to something worse.

She almost doesn't see him at first, but the hint of red against his skin is almost too much to miss and Natasha turns on her heel, calling out.

"Hey! Are you alright?"

[thecatinahat]

Cougar lifts his gaze from his study of the shears to see a new woman giving him an assessing look. "Depends," is his reply, flipping the shears so the sharp end is towards her and not him, contrary to what most would do. "Are you any good at cutting hair?" he asks, as if this is the only thing that's actually determining whether he's fine or not.

The blood will clean away, the stitching will fade, but his current aesthetic? It's no good.

[taiyny]

"'Fraid not," she says with a small smile and moves to sit down across from him.

"You'd probably end up looking like a sheep. I get mine done at a salon on Fifth Ave, but I'm probably going to miss next month's appointment."

She settles back in on her chair, rests one arm along the back of it.

"How'd you get the new 'do?"

[thecatinahat]

Cougar raises his brow as he considers what he would look like, with a sheep's haircut. He thinks Jensen might mock him for the next six months, which is just about six months too long, even if it means that the ice between them will thaw. Her comment earns a mild derisive sound in his throat, because he doesn't think he's ever met anyone who actually did such things.

Maybe Aisha did, in between her spare time collecting ears and using rocket launchers.

"Earthquake," he says, his words as careful and picked as ever given his issues with English. "Was setting up coop wire. Sat up at the wrong time."

[taiyny]

"Guessing that's how you got the stitches, too?"

It's a rhetorical question, because of course that's how he got it. She can't help but be a little impressed, considering. Doing field stitching on yourself isn't easy. It hurts, and coupled with the pain you might already be in due to the wound you've already sustained, passing out is highly likely. An anesthetic can help, but this place doesn't even have electricity. Anything useful for anesthesia is probably nowhere near the table, let alone on it.

"You have chickens?"

[thecatinahat]

He holds up one hand, because giving himself stitches in a reflective surface isn't even the worst situation he's done it in. That award goes to the time that he'd had to do it under the hail of gunfire and with Pooch bleeding on him. And of course, he couldn't use the chloroform. When she asks the next question, though, he stops fussing with the stitches to give an audible agreement in the form of a grunt.

"One hen, three chickalings," he says, accent thick. "Jensen will name them soon, then, I think, they will start laying eggs for us."

[igotacrossbow]

Jake is at the vegetable patch when Cougar finds him eventually, using brush and thin tree branches to weave together a somewhat lopsided but clearly determined fence around the little green shoots that will hopefully deter any casual nibblers that might wander by. Rabbits and deer make for a good dinner, but if they eat the rest of their dinner, even their meat won't be enough to get them through the coming months.

He looks up when he hears Baby's distinctive baying yap of a bark, shielding his eyes from the sun to see Cougar and their dog approach.

"Hey man," he greets, wiping his forearm across his forehead as he straightens, resting one palm on the post he'd driven into the ground. He opens his mouth to say something else when he realizes just what's wrong with this picture, and growns sharply.

"Cougar, your hair!"

[thecatinahat]

It feels like sometimes, they only work. If it weren't for a life in the military, Cougar would be sore all the time, but as it stands, the digging just reminds him of being back in Clay's unit, doing menial physical tasks because they have no other choice. "Earthquake," he says, using his hands to try and explain what happened. "Sat up under the barbed wire for the coop. De repente, se corta y se había sangre," he rambles.

He hitches up the box in his hands a little higher, giving Jake a hopeful look with his eyes. "Take a break," he coaxes. "I made you dinner."

[igotacrossbow]

There's something satisfying about doing hard labor and actually seeing the results of said labor. Jake is used to digging ditches — both of the latrine and of the grave variety — but it's nice to be digging for fence posts instead. Or to be chopping wood for their stove. Or to till the earth so plants can be planted. He's looking forward to see the fruits of their labor, even if they don't get much growing before winter comes.

He shakes his head at Cougar. "That was dumb," he says, but not unkindly. It's hard to keep being mat at Cougar when he's clearly feeling bad about upsetting Jake, and Jake has forgiven Cougar for all kinds of shit. This is just something else to put behind them.

The prospect of dinner cheers him up, though, and he brightens, moving closer to where Cougar's standing, smiling when the dog goes into ecstasies at seeing Jake come close enough to pet him.. "I could eat," he allows, wiping his hands on the legs of his overalls. "What did you bring?"

[thecatinahat]

Cougar withdraws the box away from Jake, unable to help his teasing smirk. "No," is his firm response. "You will find out later, when we eat," he says with a nod of his head, because he wants to save his surprises for later. He had spent a great deal of time working on this dinner because it's for a special occasion. Cougar's gaze slips over Jake's face and body, inhaling sharply as he works to find his courage.

He knows what he must do. It's just a matter of doing it right, like any mission.

[igotacrossbow]

Jake huffs when Cougar pulls the food away from him, but he's not ravenous, so he's not super irritated to have his meal snatched away from his hands. He's also a little distracted by the dog who's cavorting around his ankles, trampling the nascent little garden that they've planted with his little doggy feet.

"Baby!" he chastises, laughing as he bends down to hoist the dog into his arms — a fact Baby is perfectly happy with, as evidenced by the way he immediately starts trying to lick Jake's beard — so he can walk him away from the garden. "Stop fucking up the garden, silly!"

He looks to Cougar, expecting to see him at his side as always. Even though things are still weird between them, having Cougar at his elbow is one of the facts of the universe, like the sun rises in the East, like Spring comes after Winter, comes after Fall. Cougar is always at his side. "So, we gonna eat or what?"

[thecatinahat]

The dog is too coddled and spoiled, but Cougar finds he can't do anything but drag his nails slowly over Jake's back as he rests his hand there, wanting to move those fingers up into his hair instead and scratch at the growing length. Jake is in a good mood -- good, this is good, this will help him. "I set up a place, up by the canyon," he says. "Little bit of space with a blanket." It's not much of a view because the canyon tends to overshadow things, but it will give them the kind of privacy they need.

"You deserve a break," he says quietly. "We can bring the dog."

[specialise]

The earth moves, and Raven knows she can't take credit for it.

She often believes her feet are as heavy and powerful as Goliath's, but she's often as small as the rock that had knocked his legs right from out under him. The earth shakes, and it feels so familiar, but she knows that the ground beneath her feet isn't made of solid metal like the Ark. This isn't the grip of space, wanting to shake those who lived in the space station off from where they're carefully balanced.

Barrelling down the stairs, Raven glides into the kitchen and stops short when she sees Cougar. He's a familiar face, and one she doesn't mind seeing. "Hey, big cat," she says, and her lips curve up just a little. Her brows furrow when she sees his neck. "You get clawed by a bigger cat?"

[thecatinahat]

"Little bird," he greets in turn, still patching lightly at the still bloody parts of the stitches that he hasn't been able to clean up as best as he'd like. He keeps missing little patches at the nape of his neck. "Was clawed by the wire that keeps in the other little birds," is his reply, feeling a little pale and bruised up yet. He flips the shears with ease, holding them out to her with the utmost faith and trust (considering their first meeting involved her trying to get a knife to defend herself). "How good are you at cutting hair?" he asks.

He doesn't think he's ready to go home and look like such a fashion disaster, not when he can get the help to cut it. It won't be pretty for a while -- in early days in the Army, he'd had close cropped hair. It had always frizzed and curled when it grew out until it hit a pin-straight point when it seemed to hang long enough to avoid that. "Can't reach the back."

[specialise]

She rolls her eyes at his response, but it's matched with a smile. The nickname may take some time getting used to being parroted by someone else, but the sound of Cougar's voice doesn't make Raven want to jump out of her skin and attack him.

Not like the wire he tries to keep his alleged birds contained in has lashed out at him.

She walks over to him and takes the shears, looking them over for a moment. Her lips still remain curved upward. "I've had some barber experience," she says. "Good thing he's not here, he'd tell you I can't cut straight." She doesn't make a move to cut his hair. "Is that okay with you? Being a cat with lopsided fur?"

[thecatinahat]

He shrugs his shoulders in a smooth way when she says he might be crooked. There's really only one person here he'd ever want to look good for and it's not like Jake has ever judged him for his hair, even if Cougar had always kept it smooth and sleek and controlled. In a place like this with rain and humidity, he doesn't think such a thing will really be possible. Crooked? If it curls as he expects it will, no one's even going to notice. "Better crooked than salmonete lado," he says with a gesture to how the hair currently hangs, a mullet that no one has ever wanted. He runs his fingers regretfully through the remaining good bits of hair, then touches the scar, and sighs.

Gesturing for her to go on and cut, he resigns himself to looking like a civilian. "Do it," he says firmly.

[specialise]

She laughs at the Spanish, liking how something that hasn't necessarily been expressed amongst the delinquents has found her once again in this town. Languages on the Ark hadn't been forgotten, but they hadn't been widely celebrated, either. Assuming Cougar's from before the bombs — if she slots everyone into that particular timeline — she feels like she's touching a little bit of the past with hearing it.

As someone who has her hair styled the same every day — pulled back with a braid lost somewhere in there — Raven's belief she's a poor hairstylist is easily proven false. But it makes things feel easier between them, and perhaps this big cat is particular about his hair.

She runs her fingers through his hair, trying to pull it gently to its maximum length before she considers how to proceed. It's with an easy snip of a small bit of hair that she begins.

"Is having a mullet really that bad?"

[thecatinahat]

He gives her a look that says she ought to know the answer to that question already, seeing as there is no reality in which a mullet is acceptable. Especially not with someone like Cougar, who's spent most of his adult life looking effortlessly styled with little to no effort. Mullets? No, that wouldn't fit in with his aims.

"Would you wear one?" he counters, thinking that will give him the answer he already knows. He stays completely still as she works, though, not wishing for an uneven, unflattering cut.